The Bandit Bard

HOW THE ENGLISH-BORN, CIVIL WAR VETERAN'S CAREER AS AMERICA'S MOST PROLIFIC POET-STAGECOACH ROBBER BEGAN ON THE BACKROADS OF CALIFORNIA'S GOLD COUNTRY

- JOHN BOESSENECKER

In San Francisco, Charley Boles became a new man. No longer was he a farmer in hobnailed boots, a rifleman in a muddy uniform or a gold hunter in a shabby miner’s frock. He suddenly began dressing in the height of fashion, sporting a salt-and-pepper wool suit with double-breasted coat, a silk tie with gold stickpin and a diamond ring on one finger, all topped off with a stylish bowler hat. He stepped briskly across the city’s cobblestone streets with a gold-headed walking stick swinging jauntily from his right fist. Though he was a loner, his gentlemanly manners and quick sense of humor soon attracted a small circle of friends and acquaintances. They ranged from the owner of his favorite restaurant, Jacob M. Pike, to the colorful and hugely popular fire chief of San Francisco, David Scannell.

To San Franciscans he was Charles E. Bolton, but at various times he claimed to be C. E. Benton, Harry Barton and Charley Barlow. Boles told people that he was a prosperous stock speculator and mine owner with claims in the Sierra gold country and in Nevada’s Comstock Lode. He spent much of his time in what was called Pauper Alley—a section of narrow Leidesdorff Street, between California and Pine. It was situated just off Montgomery Street, which later became known as “Wall Street of the West.” Montgomery Street was—and still is—the center of San Francisco’s financial district. It featured the headquarters of major banks, mining companies, stock brokerages, real estate agencies and shipping corporations. Pauper Alley, so named after the silver market crash known as the Panic of 1873, connected San Francisco’s two stock exchanges.